1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of refrigerator cabinets and, more particularly, to the incorporation of a plastic kickface that extends across a lower frontal section of a refrigerator cabinet, through which a lower door hinge is secured to the refrigerator cabinet and which is joined with a member adapted to be engaged by a seal for at least one door of the refrigerator.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In constructing a refrigerator cabinet, it is common practice to structurally interconnect lower end portions of cabinet shell side panels with a laterally extending metal face plate. In addition to enhancing the structural integrity of the cabinet shell, the metal face plate defines a surface that is adapted to be engaged by a lower section of a seal extending about an inner peripheral portion of a door that is mounted to the cabinet shell for pivotal movement between open and closed positions. The metal face plate also serves as a mounting support for a lower hinge bracket upon which the door is pivotally mounted. In addition to the use of a metal face plate, it is common practice to provide a plastic kickplate, which also extends across a lower frontal portion of the cabinet shell. Such a plastic kickplate can be either directly attached to the metal face plate or to primary flange structure created by roll-forming or otherwise bending frontal edge sections of the side panels. In either case, the plastic kickplate is positioned below the lowermost edge of the door and often covers at least a portion of the lower hinge bracket.
Such a conventional refrigerator cabinet construction suffers from various disadvantages. First of all, forming a refrigerator cabinet with both a metal face plate and a separate plastic kickplate increases the overall manufacturing costs. Not only do separate, rather thick plate elements need to be formed, but the plates must be individually attached at distinct times during the overall assembly of the refrigerator cabinet. In addition, further manufacturing costs are incurred since the metal face plate must be painted in order to prevent rusting thereof.
Based on the above, there exists a need in the art of refrigerators for an improved cabinet assembly that minimizes the associated manufacturing costs and simplifies the overall assembly of the cabinet, while maintaining the structural and aesthetically pleasing characteristics of known prior art refrigerator cabinet arrangements.